Audio Version Of The Blog – 10/31/19

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Two Stages Toward The Goal

laitman_942In principle, all our actions and our entire path consist of two stages. The first is to love your friend as yourself. When this is achieved, we proceed to the second stage: love the Creator as you love your friend, your group.

One stage transforms into the other. It cannot be otherwise: love your friend as yourself, love the Creator as you love your friend. There are no other alternatives. This is what spiritual development consists of; it is completely different, opposite to our nature.

When a person encounters such a condition, he must shake himself well more than once in order to confront the fact that connection with others must occur outside of and above himself. In order to do so, a upper light must come and create these conditions.

I can demand it by being inspired by my friends. Playing between us, we can create among us such a desire: jealousy, envy, anything. The main thing is to understand that I must achieve this; otherwise, I will remain an animal in our world, end my life like all animals, and nothing else will remain.

Only envy, jealousy, and a desire for honor lead a person from his animal state to the next, the highest one.

We must understand that only our serious decision to master the spiritual state at any cost, at the cost of breaking up with our egoistic life, with our egoistic attitude to the world, will give us the opportunity to rise, and to love our neighbor as ourselves and to love the Creator as our neighbor are two stages by which we must reach our goal.
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From the Convention In Moldova “Day One” 9/6/19, “Dissolving in the Friends,” Lesson 1

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A Warm Attitude Toward The Friend Brings Us To The Creator
The Progress Of The Friend Is More Important Than My Own Progress

For Love Of Friends

laitman_947Question: When there is a desire to fill a friend, we forget about ourselves. In theory, should this desire alone be enough to somehow annul myself?

Answer: Yes, perhaps, for now. Probably that will change later. What does it mean to fill a friend? It means that you are prepared to sacrifice everything if only he receives what he wants.

Question: Is my desire to fill the friend egoistic?

Answer: It does not matter that it is egoistic. At the moment I do not check whether or not it is egoistic. I am not in the position yet to weight egoism and altruism. I am prepared to fill the friend with what he wants. This is called love for him.

Then, there are degrees, which I will climb and discover that this is egoistic love, and in fact, not even of the friend, but of myself, that I satisfy my desires in this way.

We learn that the love for one’s friend is only possible above self-hatred. One must feel self-hatred and to the same extent feel the love for others. This will then be the love for a friend and not for my new desire because this is self-deception.
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From the Convention In Moldova “Day One” 9/6/19, “Dissolving in the Friends,” Lesson 1

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Two Stages Toward The Goal
About the Value of Love for Friends

Why Should We Respect Elders? (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: Why should we respect elders?

The elderly represent the layer of society that holds a reservoir of wisdom and experience.

We see that people with more developed desires, such as scientists, who seek knowledge about our lives and the world develop more in their practice the more they age.

When scientists reach their elderly years, they don’t simply stop their scientific work, go on pension and relax for the rest of their lives. After spending a major portion of their lives accumulating knowledge and experience, the older they become, the more they improve in their scientific work. There is no age to seekers of science, knowledge, and wisdom.

We should respect the elderly because we very much need them and can highly benefit from the wealth of their wisdom and experience.

What would happen if all elderly people were removed from the planet? We don’t feel it, but the world would lose an immense amount of richness and depth.

One of the problems today is that it has become normal to live until the age of 90 and over. When I was younger, over 60 was considered old, with 70 being the peak. Now it’s over 90. Unfortunately, however, society has yet to realize how to make best use of people in this age group. It is a sign of us failing to best realize what nature has given us.

It’s common to envision our elderly years as those where we detach from the daily grind, go on pension, and find ways to relax and enjoy life till we die. Unfortunately, however, we fail to see how such an approach separates us from the vitalizing spring of human activity that comes from being contributing members of society. Numerous studies today show the physiological and psychological benefits of human contact, and it is no different for the elderly. In addition, death doesn’t come as a result of old age, but as a result of people losing engagement with life.

We should therefore, first and foremost, understand what elderly people lack most, which is to express themselves. Moreover, in order to let elderly people express themselves, we would need to setup systems that activate their contribution to society.

For example, currently in Israel there is an experimental project that pairs 80-year-olds with 4-year-olds for 2 to 3 hours a day in an effort that aims to mutually benefit the elderly and the children. I support such an initiative. In general, in the structure of a family spanning 3 generations—grandparents, parents and children—the children can receive a rawer kind of emotional connection from the grandparents than from the parents, one that is pressure-free and more heartfelt. Likewise, the elderly can find plentiful ways to express their many insights from life in sharing with the children, and the children can learn and gain a special kind of attention from their elders.

We should thus respect elders for their wealth of wisdom and experience, and instead of letting the elderly detach and wither away from society, we should rather seek ways to offer them self-expression by being contributing members of society.

Dissolve Our Egoism

laitman_963.8Question: How can I not be afraid of the feeling that I am dissolving?

Answer: If a person feels very ill, he is ready to dissolve without fear. Everyone has such moments when he is ready to disappear, not to hear anything, not to exist.

If we increase the importance of spirituality, we reach such a state where it is worth dissolving our egoism for the sake of attaining spirituality.
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From the Convention In Moldova “Day One” 9/6/19, Lesson 2, “To Become Ready to Be Influenced by the Society”

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Kabbalah And Beliefs, Part 8

laitman_275Turn to the Creator

Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article 209: There are three conditions in prayer:

 

  1. Believing that He can save him. Although he has the worst conditions of all his contemporaries, still, “Will the Lord’s hand be too short to save him?” If it is not so, then “the Landlord cannot save His vessels.
  2. He no longer has any choice for he has already done all that he could but saw no cure to his plight.
  3. If He does not help him, he will be better off dead than alive. 

These are three correct attitudes to life. Everything is determined by the Creator. There is not a single thought or feeling that comes from me, only from the Creator.

Therefore, I have to always be in a heightened state of readiness, analyzing everything happening in my mind and feelings, realizing that the Creator presents it to me, and ask Him immediately for correction, to direct me properly to have good thoughts of love and bestowal toward others, that is, accompanied with good feelings that are above oneself of bestowing to others.

The Creator reveals only evil in me, as it is said: “I created evil.” However, I catch this evil mid-way and immediately ask Him to change it to good.

I then begin to enter into an interesting relationship with the Creator called “a dance,” like a tango: He leads me, and I lead Him. He influences me, and I give back to Him. Thus, we complete each other.

Acknowledging the evil is primary here. Once you understand that it came from the Creator and that “There is none else besides Him,” there is only one thing left to do: ask Him to change the evil to good. This is what our whole life is about, our entire spiritual work.

Question: Can I turn to the Creator without acknowledging my egoistic qualities and their destructiveness?

Answer: No. It is like you are the goalkeeper and the Creator constantly shoots at the goal, and you have to constantly deflect His shots.

Question: Do Kabbalists engage in self-reproach?

Answer: If you constantly cry, dissatisfied with your life, reproach anyone and everything, then you are dissatisfied with what the Creator has given you.

Question: Does Kabbalah view the cause of human depravity positively?

Answer: The Creator specifically did this so a person would need His help, and thus could ascend to His level.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 12/17/18

Related Material:
Kabbalah And Beliefs, Part 7
Kabbalah And Beliefs, Part 6
Kabbalah And Beliefs, Part 5

Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 10/31/19

Lesson Preparation

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Lesson on the Topic “Love Covers All Crimes” (Preparation for the Convention in Bulgaria)

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